Thursday, May 15, 2014

Trust in government? Are you kidding?

You know, if I were even as little as 33% sure that all those routers were destined for overseas clients, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep.

And I don't even necessarily mean Moscow or Tehran. Spying on foreign countries is what the NSA's there for, and there are two kinds of countries in this world: Those who spy on putative allies, and those who haven't gotten caught yet.

But given how the intelligence services' watch lists for domestic hanky-panky are proven over and over to be just another tool of hardball partisan politics, anybody trusting those pictures above to be acting in the national interest with respect for the rights of American citizens is so naive they shouldn't be allowed out in public without a minder.

Watergate would still be front page news for two reasons. Our betters still don't think they should be subjected to the same treatment that they approve of for their subjects. And the people who control the front pages would still be outraged about which party was doing the spying for political gain.

Unless, of course, Watergate occurred during a Republican watch. Republicans, as you have alluded to elsewhere, are like Caesar's wife. They must be above reproach. Democrats, on the other hand, can be Messalina, and no one will speak ill.

This situation is almost certainly going to turn out to be very damaging to Silicon Valley. I'm the Security Guy at a tech company, and my phone has started ringing with customers asking if the NSA did this to our product shipments, too.

I don't know all the ripple effects that are going to play out, but it feels like the butterfly has flapped its wings and something wicked this way comes as a result.

Good times, good times.

P.S. I don't think that there's an inch of space between the Democrats and the Republicans on this.